The New Thing

The New Thing

Javascript is the new thing. About five years ago I got a little tired of the explosion of web frameworks and moved into compiled programs and music software. Now, after a long hiatus, the web is completely different. Now we have that javascript debugger I was missing all those alert()s ago, and the same code (pretty much) runs everywhere.

Now here’s what I see coming in cold.

We literally have ubiquitous support of a high-level language (javascript) in the whole world’s hands (mobile devices), and it has access to cutting edge graphics technology (html 4/5, etc). While before OS’s were struggling for streamlined and unilateral application support, the browsers have climbed and dismounted that ladder on the roof of the platform game. The web browser is a virtual machine that is poised to become the next host for desktop applications. Now it’s just up to us to get better at doing that.

Yes, I mean *desktop* applications. The term “client-side” should go away. We should write more javascript and ditch the stateless paradigm. We’ve already a great RESTful concepts (http/JSON) to harness our massive distributed resources, so let’s get going. We need to start writing javascript like we write C++ for native apps, and improving on the markup (because right now it totally sucks).

And why not? Google has apparently invested millions getting their javascript engine to run faster than CPython. Safari and IE are right behind. Everyone supports it absolutely everywhere. The debuggers are getting better. jQueryUI style coding is where it’s at. Now we just need to write more code.